Ken MacLeod

en.wikipedia.org /wiki/Ken_MacLeod
For other people named Ken MacLeod, see Ken MacLeod (disambiguation).
Ken MacLeod
Addressing the 63rd World
Science Fiction Convention,
Glasgow, August 2005

Born

Occupation
Genre

Kenneth Macrae MacLeod

(1954-08-02) 2 August 1954
Stornoway, Isle of Lewis, Scotland
Writer
science ction
Website

kenmacleod.blogspot.com
Kenneth Macrae "Ken" MacLeod (born 2 August 1954) is a Scottish
science ction writer.

Contents
Biography
MacLeod was born in Stornoway, Scotland on 2 August 1954. [1] He
graduated from Glasgow University with a degree in zoology and has
Ken and Carol MacLeod the Boskone 43, 2006.
worked as a computer programmer and written a masters thesis on
biomechanics.[2] He was a Trotskyist activist in the 1970s and early
1980s[3] and is married and has two children. [1] He lives in South Queensferry near Edinburgh.

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MacLeod is opposed to Scottish independence.[4]

Writing
He is part of a group of British science ction writers who specialise in hard science ction and space opera. His
contemporaries include Stephen Baxter, Iain M. Banks, Paul J. McAuley, Alastair Reynolds, Adam Roberts, Charles
Stross, Richard Morgan, and Liz Williams.
His science ction novels often explore socialist, communist, and anarchist political ideas, most particularly the
variants of Trotskyism and anarcho-capitalism or extreme economic libertarianism. Technical themes encompass
singularities, divergent human cultural evolution, and post-human cyborg-resurrection. MacLeod's general outlook
can be best described as techno-utopian socialist, [5][6] though unlike a majority of techno-utopians, he has
expressed great scepticism over the possibility and especially over the desirability of strong AI.[5]

He is known for his constant in-joking and punning on the intersection between socialist ideologies and computer
programming, as well as other elds. For example, his chapter titles such as "Trusted Third Parties" or
"Revolutionary Platform" usually have double (or multiple) meanings. A future programmers union is called
"Information Workers of the World Wide Web", or the Webblies, a reference to the Industrial Workers of the World,
who are nicknamed the Wobblies. The Webblies idea formed a central part of the novel For the Win by Cory
Doctorow and MacLeod is acknowledged as coining the term.[7] Doctorow and Charles Stross also used one of
MacLeod's references to the singularity as "the rapture for nerds" as the title for their collaborative novel Rapture of
the Nerds. There are also many references to, or puns on, zoology and palaeontology. For example, in The Stone
Canal the title of the book, and many places described in it, are named after anatomical features of marine
invertebrates such as starsh.

Books about MacLeod

The Science Fiction Foundation have published an analysis of MacLeod's work The True Knowledge Of Ken
MacLeod (2003; ISBN 0-903007-02-9) edited by Andrew M. Butler and Farah Mendlesohn. As well as critical
essays it contains material by MacLeod himself, including his introduction to the German edition of Banks' Consider
Phlebas.

Bibliography
Series
Fall Revolution series
1. The Star Fraction (1995; US paperback ISBN 0-7653-0156-3) Prometheus Award winner, 1996;
Clarke Award nominee, 1996[8]
2. The Stone Canal (1996; US paperback ISBN 0-8125-6864-8) Prometheus Award winner, 1998;
BSFA nominee, 1996[8]

3. The Cassini Division (1998; US paperback ISBN 0-312-87044-2) BSFA nominee, 1998; [9] Clarke,
and Nebula Awards nominee, 1999 [10]

4. The Sky Road (1999; US paperback ISBN 0-8125-7759-0) BSFA Award winner, 1999; [10] Hugo Award
nominee, 2001 [11] represents an 'alternate future' to the second two books, as its events diverge
sharply due to a choice made dierently by one of the protagonists in the middle of The Stone
Canal [12]

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This series is also available in two volumes:

1. Fractions: The First Half of the Fall Revolution (2009; US paperback ISBN 0-7653-2068-1)
2. Divisions: The Second Half of the Fall Revolution (2009; US paperback ISBN 0-7653-2119-X)
Engines of Light Trilogy
The Corporation Wars[14]
1. Dissidence (2016)
2. Insurgence (2016)
3. Emergence (2017)

Other work
Newton's Wake: A Space Opera (2004; US paperback edition ISBN 0-7653-4422-X) BSFA nominee,
2004;[15] Campbell Award nominee, 2005 [16]
Learning the World: A Novel of First Contact (2005; UK hardback edition ISBN 1-84149-343-0) Prometheus

Award winner 2006; Hugo, Locus SF, Campbell and Clarke Awards nominee, 2006; [17] BSFA nominee,
2005[16]
"The Highway Men" (2006; UK edition ISBN 1-905207-06-9)

The Execution Channel (2007; UK hardback edition ISBN 1-84149-348-1 ISBN 978-1841493480) BSFA
Award nominee, 2007;[18] Campbell, and Clarke Awards nominee, 2008 [19]

The Night Sessions (2008; UK hardback edition ISBN 1-84149-651-0 ISBN 978-1841496511) Winner Best
Novel 2008 BSFA[19]
The Restoration Game (2010). According to the author, "In The Restoration Game I revisited the fall of the
Soviet Union, with a narrator who is at rst a piece in a game played by others, and works her way up to
becoming to some extent a player, but as we see when we pull back at the end is still part of a larger
game."[20]
Intrusion (2012): "an Orwellian surveillance society installs sensors on pregnant women to prevent smoking

or drinking; and these women also have to take a eugenic 'x' to eliminate genetic anomalies.[20]

Descent (2014):[21] "My genre model for Descent was bloke-lit that's basically rst-person, self-serving,
rueful confessional by a youngish man looking back on youthful stupidities... ... Descent is about ying
saucers, hidden races, and Antonio Gramsci's concept of passive revolution, all set in a tale of Scottish
middle class family life in and after the Great Depression of the 21st Century. Almost mainstream ction,
really."[20]

Short ction
Collections
Poems & Polemics (2001; Rune Press: Minneapolis, MN) Chapbook of non-ction and poetry.
Giant Lizards From Another Star (2006; US trade hardcover ISBN 1-886778-62-0) Collected ction and
nonction.

References
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1. ^ a b Raven, Paul (February 2007). "The New British Catastrophe". The SF Site. Retrieved 20 March 2012.
2. ^ "Ken MacLeod's ocial page at Orbit Books". Orbitbooks.co.uk. Archived from the original on 17 December
2005. Retrieved 20 March 2012.
3. ^ Walker, Jesse (November 2000). "Anarchies, States, and Utopias". Reason Magazine. Retrieved 20 March
2012.
4. ^ MacLeod, Ken (19 December 2012). "Never knowingly understated". The Early Days of A Better Nation.
Retrieved 27 February 2014. "Of the 27, I counted 15 who would give a denite Yes to independence. Only
two of the others Jenni Calder and myself give a denite No."
5. ^ a b "SF Zone interview with MacLeod". Zone-sf.com. Retrieved 20 March 2012.
6. ^ Butler, Andrew M.; Mendlesohn, Farah, eds. (2003). The True Knowledge Of Ken MacLeod. SF
Foundation. ISBN 0-903007-02-9.
7. ^ Cory Doctorow (2010). For the Win. HarperVoyager. ISBN 978-0765322166. MacLeod is thanked in the
Acknowledgements section: "Many thanks to Ken MacLeod for letting me use IWWWW and 'Webbly.'"
8. ^ a b "1996 Award Winners & Nominees | Science Fiction & Fantasy Books by Award" . Worlds Without End.
Retrieved 11 June 2010.
9. ^ "1998 Award Winners & Nominees | Science Fiction & Fantasy Books by Award" . Worlds Without End.
Retrieved 11 June 2010.
10. ^ a b "1999 Award Winners & Nominees | Science Fiction & Fantasy Books by Award" . Worlds Without End.
Retrieved 11 June 2010.
11. ^ a b "2001 Award Winners & Nominees | Science Fiction & Fantasy Books by Award" . Worlds Without End.
Retrieved 11 June 2010.
12. ^ "The Falling Rate of Prot, Red Hordes and Green Slime: What the Fall Revolution Books Are About"
Nova Express, Volume 6, Spring/Summer 2001, pp 1921
13. ^ a b "2002 Award Winners & Nominees | Science Fiction & Fantasy Books by Award" . Worlds Without End.
Retrieved 11 June 2010.
14. ^ MacLeod, Ken. "The Shape Of Things To Come". The Early Days of a Better Nation. Retrieved 28 April
2016.
15. ^ "2004 Award Winners & Nominees | Science Fiction & Fantasy Books by Award | WWEnd" .
Worldswithoutend.com. Retrieved 11 June 2010.
16. ^ a b "2005 Award Winners & Nominees | Science Fiction & Fantasy Books by Award" . Worlds Without End.
Retrieved 11 June 2010.
17. ^ "2006 Award Winners & Nominees | Science Fiction & Fantasy Books by Award" . Worlds Without End.
Retrieved 11 June 2010.
18. ^ "2007 Award Winners & Nominees | Science Fiction & Fantasy Books by Award | WWEnd" .
Worldswithoutend.com. Retrieved 11 June 2010.
19. ^ a b "2008 Award Winners & Nominees | Science Fiction & Fantasy Books by Award" . Worlds Without End.
Retrieved 11 June 2010.
20. ^ a b c Winter, Jerome (24 February 2014). "Turbulent Years Ahead: An Interview with Ken MacLeod" . Los
Angeles Review of Books.
21. ^ "Ken MacLeod - Descent". Upcoming4.me. Retrieved 18 August 2013.

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22. ^ Alexander, Niall (12 June 2014). "Step into the Stars: Reach for Innity, ed. Jonathan Strahan". Tor.com.
Retrieved 13 December 2015.

External links
Wikiquote has quotations related to: Ken MacLeod

Interviews
The story behind Descent - Online Essay by Ken MacLeod

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